Stephanie Winters
Winters- EAR Project

Genre 2: Letter for family or faculty member

When looking at the results of my CLUE project I noticed that many students who commute to campus were not involved with the different clubs on campus. One of these clubs included Best Buddies. One reason I found for this is because many of the advertising for these clubs are not presented in areas where commuters tend to go, for example dorm buildings. To get the word out about this club, I decided to make my second genre a letter to faculty members in the Special Education Department at Bloomsburg University. I wrote my letter to ask them to spread the word about this club in their classrooms. This would in turn get all students including students who commute the information about Best Buddies. When writing my letter, I used the PAGE principle to write a letter that was appropriate to send to these individuals. I looked at different types of letters to see which the right kind to send to them was.


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Example 1: This is an example of a formal letter. It has all the key aspects that should be included when writing a letter to someone of importance. It contains the address of the person receiving the letter along with the person who is sending the letter. It does not contain any slang words and is written in a professional manner. This is something that should be taken into account when writing a formal letter. The information is clearly stated and to the point. The font throughout the letter is kept constant. I like how some of the important information is in bold. This helps the reader to be directed to the information that they need to pay special attention to. The format of this letter is very professional. It helps the reader to understand that it is an important document that should be looked at. When writing a formal letter, this example should be looked at. It gives a good view on what a formal letter should look like.



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Example 2: This is an example of an informal letter. The letter is hand written instead of typed. This is a key element when looking at the type of letter you are writing. Professional formal letters should be typed. It is acceptable for informal letters to be hand written. It is not going to someone of higher standing, and can be more personal. One reason to type formal letters is so that it looks professional. Typed letter are also neater and easier to read. When looking at the actual wording in this letter, we can see that it is going to someone that the author knows. The letter is not professionally written and contains information that you would not send to someone of higher importance. We can also see that the overall format of this letter is different than the format of the formal letter. The writer says different things that let us know that the person he is writing to is someone that he knows personally. The information in this letter is scattered and not presented in a way that makes it easy to read. The overall look of this letter is unprofessional and informal.




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Example 3: The letter above is not addressed to one single person. It is a letter that is meant for everyone interested in contributing to this cause. The text in this letter is informational and persuasive. It is trying to get people involved in their effort for clean fuel. The colors of the letter make it stand out and interesting to look at. The picture of the lamp on the side helps to give the reader something to visualize when reading this letter. The picture relates the topic in which the letter is talking about. This letter is written to the general population and does not have one specific recipient. We can see that this letter is somewhere between the example of the formal and informal letter. The way the information is presented and written is easy to read by the average person. However, it does talk about something that is important and taken seriously. We can see that the author wants a larger number of people to read this letter and become involved in the effort to get clean fuel. This letter is a good example to look at if you are trying to get people involved in something that you are running. The letter can be sent out to people or placed in a public place.


EAR step 2: Letter to the Administrators and Professors in the Special Education Department at Bloomsburg University

(letter to inform this department of the club Best Buddies, encourage their students to get involved with this club)

I modeled my letter off of the formal letter presented earlier on this page. This letter is being sent to someone who is higher up. The letter should be respectful and follow a formal format. The font size should be consistent throughout the letter. A few of the important details presented throughout the letter are in bold. This helps to make these two facts stand out and be noticed. Another piece presented in this message is the address of both the recipient and the sender.